


Que el cielo exista

by waferkya



Series: BABEL [1]
Category: Basketball RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, a touch of morbid thoughts, the star-crossed romance between a man and a city and a football club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's quite simple, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Que el cielo exista

  
_’cause i know that time has numbered my days  
and i’ll go along with everything you say_

 

It’s quite simple, really: there’s nowhere else you’d rather be, not in the whole fucking world, so when they come calling, and you’re free to go, you just go. Your voice doesn’t break when you tell your agent _yeah, make this happen_ , because it’s a yes that’s been sitting on your tongue for so long.

You’ve signed your name on so many dotted lines before, but this one is it, you think; a signature more important than the ones that gave you a marriage, a divorce, a second marriage. This is like the first time you signed a document that said _Futbol Club Barcelona_ on the top; this is like the trembling scribble you put on your daughter’s birth certificate, this is the excited scratch that sits at the end of your son’s.

And just like that, you’re back; it seems easy now that it’s done and you wish you could go back to your old self and reassure him. You don’t want to take away his rage, though, because that’s what makes you who you are, and it’s what took you here, now—back, again.

You tell the press, “I always knew I’d come back.”

It’s true; but the whole truth is you never truly left, in fact, it’s been years and it doesn’t feel like it at all, because you were always back. You’ve been everywhere, you played on every court that matters, but this was your home—and your real home only ever got second place since you were fourteen and for the first time laid eyes on _her_ —and now it _is_ your home, everyone can see it.

You wear her colours and it’s so fucking familiar it’s ridiculous—the stripes and, on the wall, the big sigil of the club—your club, your new club, your old club, the only club.

Juan Carlos welcomes you back with a tiny smile, he looks up at you like he’s a kid again but you know it’s different this time. You’re friends now, the sort of friends that have a spare toothbrush for each other at their place, so it’s not reverence nor worship that makes him hesitate.

You roll your eyes and run a hand through his hair, messing it up.

“It’s fine,” you say, “I know.”

He’s scared and disquieted because your contract says _Futbol Club Barcelona_ , yes, but it also says _one year_ ; you don’t want him to worry, not so early anyway, and you hook both your arms around his neck, push your forehead up against his.

“It’s fine,” you promise again. His eyes flutter closed, and his hands settle on your hips. It’s very fucking nice and it’s something you don’t want to give up again; Juan Carlos, and Barcelona, maybe a basketball and a hoop and your wife and children, you don’t need anything else.

“It’s gonna be a mess,” he mumbles, and he sounds defeated and tired and you know it’s because of his foot, you know it’s because of the Olympics, you know he has every reason to feel like he does.

You know.

But—you’re here, and he’s here, and he’s not gonna leave for sure any time soon and maybe you will and so what?

You’ll come back.

You smile, but it’s sharp at the edges and it feels like a grin, like sickle of a lion’s mouth.

“It’ll be fun, I promise,” you say; you can give him that, and you don’t go back on promises, ever. He scoffs, because he knows. He kisses you for it.

 

_but i’ll ride home laughing, look at me now  
the walls of my town, they come crumbling down_

 

You’re not surprised and it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t, _it doesn’t_ , you think, and maybe some time in the future, maybe in another life, you might be able to believe it. You don’t know what’s worse—losing even though you fought like that, or losing, knowing that you won’t be able to fight like that again, not for these colours.

You can’t think like this.

You can’t fucking start thinking like this because if you do, you’ll have to lash out on somebody, on something, kick a wall or break a bench or a madridista’s neck and you can’t do that. You really, really can’t do that, because that’s not what you do; you deal with things the right way. And Juan Carlos looks so fucking broken—he doesn’t, not really, not outright like Joe and CJ and the kids, but you know him and you his signs and the way he’s biting his lip right now, the way he twists his fingers and stares at nothing without focusing, that’s his way of screaming and crumbling and fucking _quitting_ in public, you know that—and you can’t put your own freakout on his shoulders too.

You still want to murder someone. You still think you might get away with it.

The anger fades quickly, it burns out like a choking flame, but that’s when the disappointment kicks in and it isn’t any less fiery, and it hurts like a bitch. Disappointment makes you want to break things, too; it makes you want to pry the universe apart, peel hours off your skin like dried glue and do everything all over again, better this time—you’ll shove Marce out of court and jump in from minute four and fuck your rib, you don’t care if you die.

It wouldn’t be bad, even, dying like that—ripping the championship title from the fucks who’ve been singing insults at you for hours and days, your jersey stained with your blood. You’d want to cough a little on Juan Carlos too, because how fucking awesomely dramatic would that be—that he goes to lift to trophy with red spattered across his cheek, red on the red stripes of his shirt, red on his hands from where he curled them around your dying face right after a collapsed lung did not stop you from nailing another three-pointer.

Jesus Christ.

You want that, that reality where you die on court winning for your team; you want it so much you don’t think you stay stuck here, where all that didn’t happen.

This is Barcelona all over again, when you couldn’t stand the thought of Kaunas because of her. This is you, realizing you can’t really love Linor anymore because she’s not the only one in the world.

This is you, running. This is you, who can’t stop.

This is you, who just lost everything.

You tell the press, “There’s no moral victory, we lost, period,” because it’s the truth and it hurts because the truth always does.

When the camera skids off, looking for mellow answers and a face softer than yours, Ante taps his knee against yours.

“You okay?” he asks, and he sounds cautious but his concern is genuine. He’s a good kid.

You nod, you throw together half a smile, all the while thinking how much you’d rather be bleeding out on the floor.

 

_and my ears hear the call of my unborn sons  
and i know their choices color all i’ve done_

 

You’re not sorry about the years you spent away from Barcelona.

You tell the press the truth, “Actually, the boss did me a big favour when he kicked me out.” Because you’re Saras and you’re the one with the four Triple Crowns; you’re the only one. When they tell you you’re a king, you duck your head and laugh and tell them to save the eulogies for when you’re retired. You don’t know anything about kings, but you do feel pretty damn good.

So it’s not like you spent the nine years inbetween your red-and-blue shirts sitting around and moping and getting fat; you conquer the world but Christ, Barcelona doesn’t look any less perfect.

You get chances—you get so many of them you lose count very soon; they come knocking but your pride is still hurt and whining, and then you’re busy, and then you’re happy in Tel Aviv with your supermodel girlfriend and then you’re happy in the USA where you actually speak the language and you don’t feel a couple dozens IQ points behind everyone else when you open your mouth.

Real Madrid calls you too, and the funny thing is their call comes at a point where you have nothing better—and for a second, you think about it. Taking their offer, flying to the beating heart of Spain that doesn’t know what the sea is, swap the Camp Nou with the Bernabéu. Face Juan Carlos in a clasico, from the wrong side.

You laugh yourself sick with the thought of it, _wearing the white_ , and you ask your agent to tell them to fuck off. He promises he will, and you know he does, except not in so very few, harsh words.

“Jesus Christ,” you mumble, still smiling and shaking your head a little.

You go back to Rytas, eventually, and thoughts of betrayal don’t even remotely cross your brain. You don’t belong to Kaunas like you do to Barcelona, after all.

 

_but i’ll explain it all to the watchman’s son,  
i ain’t ever lived a year better spent in love_

 

He laughs when you say that you don’t regret it, and you poke his side with your foot in retaliation.

“I’m serious,” you say, and he giggles some more, his back a warm, shaking weight against your chest. He tips his head back, and on his lips you taste beer, the same you’ve been drinking too, and the weird spicy tapa topping he likes so much.

He nuzzles the underside of your jaw, and you tuck your hands together on his stomach, tugging him even closer.

“I don’t want you to say that because you feel—uh,” he scrunches up his nose, looking for the right word, and you never tell him how adorable he looks, and how you like listening to his English, but you think he knows anyway because he only speaks Spanish with you around other people. “Like you have to, to make me—happy.”

You smile.

“I don’t need words to make you happy, now do I?” Juan Carlos snorts and you kiss the top of his head. “I’m serious. I’m happy about this season, all things considered.”

“I just—” he sighs, and pushes back against you until he can’t physically get any closer. He reaches out with one hand and brushes it on your side, where the hard cast is set around your torso to keep your broken rib to stab your lungs to death. “Wish it ended differently, better. Joder—I just wish it didn’t end.”

You have exactly the same wish, but you don’t say anything because you figure he knows.

You haven’t lied; you liked this year you spent with him, here and around Europe a little. You liked it. Hated it too, but nothing is ever perfect and you decided a long time ago—when the draft call didn’t come—to look past that.

You signed with Rytas then, and then Olimpija, and then finally, Barcelona; your legs are tangled with Juan Carlos’ now.

Jesus Christ, you’d be crazy to complain.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean to write something about Saras for every line of “Babel” by Mumford & Sons, probably a couple of other songs too, so I’m making this a series.
> 
> The sentences you read introduced or followed by “you tell the press” are all actual things Saras told to reporters throughout the 2012-13 season ([1](www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZ-zEY2d7U), 2).
> 
> Lietuvos Rytas and Zalgiris Kaunas have a very strong sports rivalry going between them, Barça-and-Madrid style; Saras is from Kaunas, which means that he should, by nature, be a Zalgiris supporter, but he signed with Rytas in 1998 when he was fresh back from the US.
> 
> The title is half a sentence from Borges’ “The Library of Babel”; the complete verse is _Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno_ , and it means “May Heaven exist, even if my place is Hell”.
> 
> Love sucks.


End file.
